Cat gives birth to 3. That cat and those 3 will each have a litter of 3 for the next 7 years. How many cats total?

I'll give this one a try....like Tenacious.....I'm not too sure, either.....!!!

At the end of the first year, we have 4 cats

Each one of these give birth to 3 cats in the second year.....so at the end of the second year we have the original 4 plus 12 = 4 + 4(3) = 16

And each one of these has 3 cats...so....at the end of the third year, we have 16 + 16(3) = 64 cats

So...it appears that the total number of cats (C) after n years is equal to

C = 4^n = 4^7= 16,384 cats after 7 years

That's my story.....and I'm sticking to it...!!!!

Assuming that the cat that had the first litter of 3 was the only litter that year? So all calculations will be over the next 7 years? Assuming all other cats born don't have any litters themselves?

We have 4 cats that have 3 litters of 3 kittens, per year, for 7 years, plus the 1 original cat and it's 3 original cats.

(4*3*3*7)+4 = 256

Don't really need the brackets as we should do all multiplication before addition as per order of operations.

Please bear in mind I am just a newbie so there may be more elegant solutions to this and I may be wrong, though I believe I have it correct.